Yes, it’s 2025, and a burger chain has issued a statement addressing their one-sided beef with a pop star’s trip to outer space. On Thursday, just a few days after Wendy’s suggested that Katy Perry should be sent back to space after her trip with Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company Blue Origin, the fast-food chain is now claiming to have respect for the pop icon.
“We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world talent,” Wendy’s told People. Absent from the statement were the words “we’re sorry” and “we apologize.”
Wendy’s joined in the widespread criticism of the Blue Origin space flight, which made history as the first all-women crew to cross the Kármán line since the Sixties. Under a post from Pop Crave about the pop star’s successful landing after going to space, Wendy’s wrote, “Can we send her back.” The account also wrote, “When we said women in stem this isn’t what we meant,” in a separate post.
The fast-food chain’s post even seemed to prompt Perry’s former friend Kesha to support the recommendation by posting a photo of herself smirking while sipping from a Wendy’s cup.
After the space mission, other celebrities — among them Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde, and Olivia Munn — also chided the female crew, which included journalist Gayle King, journalist (and Bezos’ fiancée) Lauren Sánchez, and NASA scientist Aisha Bowe. “I think it’s a bit gluttonous. Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they gonna do up there that has made it better for us down here?” said Munn.
King, who was on the trip, expressed disappointment toward people framing the voyage as a “ride,” noting a double standard in the response to the all-female trip versus the 10-suborbital Blue Origin flight with humans aboard that have carried men into space. “You never see a man, a male astronaut, who’s going up in space and they say, ‘Oh, he took a ride,’” she said. “It’s always referred to as a flight or a journey, so I feel that’s a little disrespectful to what the mission was and the work that Blue Origin does.”
